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Topic: Pitch Bend over an Octave (Read 4015 times) previous topic - next topic

Pitch Bend over an Octave

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue begins with a continuous octave slide by clarinet, which I would like to simulate with NWC. My attempts using MPC Pitch Bend (which appears to be limited to a half tone) haven't worked. Is there a way?

Re: Pitch Bend over an Octave

Reply #1 –
Short answer: no. The default pitch-bend as defined in the General Midi spec is +/- 1 whole-tone, or a total range of 4 semitones. Longer answer: If your synth supports the pitch-bend range controller, you could expand this to an octave, but it won't necessarily work on anyone else's synth or soundcard. Even so, you'd have to insert this using another program, since NWC (probably wisely so) doesn't offer this as one of the available controllers.

Longest answer - you can simulate this quite believably using many overlapping 4-semitone sweeps with volume fade-ins at the beginning and fade-outs at the end. The sweep sections would alternate between two different staves; the volume up on one overlaps with the volume-down on the other, for an almost seemless sweep for as long as you like.

I simulated the sound of a theremin using this approach, you can check it out by downloading

http://www.netidea.com/~fredn/nwc/impendum.nwc

btw - Most players actually can't do a true glissando on that introduction to Rhapsody in Blue; the good ones play a chromatic scale for the first (lower) part, and only do a gliss on the last few notes at the top. This would be relatively easy to do in NWC. Only the truly amazing players can make a true gliss on this, and it should be noted that they use a very similar approach as outlined above -- a series of much shorter glisses that blend together apparently seamlessly.

Re: Pitch Bend over an Octave

Reply #2 –
That's a very good tip. How about adding it to the User Tips page ?

Re: Pitch Bend over an Octave

Reply #3 –
Better yet, add this and other forum gems to the next version of the manual and helpfile where alphabetizing makes it easier to find.
RCV

Re: Pitch Bend over an Octave

Reply #4 –
Actually this exists, sort of, in the "offline Forum." It's arranged as a standard Windows Help file, so you can do all the usual things, like search and browse by topics or keywords. Well worth the download. Many a question has been answered for me by using this resource.

Another good resource is the newgroup archives, available from the Scriptorium. You just need a good text editor (not sure if WordPad would cut it; I use PFE) and then you can search for keywords or phrases.

Re: Pitch Bend over an Octave

Reply #5 –
Fred,

I downloaded and tried your "impendum". It is a little jewel! (literal translation from french, but I hope it can be understood). Thank you for it.